Put this on my profile page but figured I'd leave it here as well. :-)

Laguna Seca, Lucas Oil open wheel race report:

After onset of illness Monday of race week (The Lagunavirus! :-) quallied P2 for race 1. Buggered the start dropping to P4 and quickly fought back to P3. First two kids gapped me and I gapped the rest of the field to finish P3 and P1 master.

Race 2, spun at the top of the corkscrew during qually and still managed a P4 start. (They penalize your loss of control by throwing out your fastest lap.) Maintained P4 at start hounding P3 for 14 laps until he made a mistake at turn 3 allowing me around him. Held him off the last 3 laps going side by side through the corkscrew and holding a P3 finish by a couple of hundredths to finish again P3 overall P1 masters.

Race two was hard fought nose to tail from green to checker. My best race ever at Laguna. Sick as a dog but overcame the obstacles.

Yeah. Saw that as well. Figured after the bolt incident that points probably weren't coming back. They might as well get rid of the bolts now too. Apparently, no one will be able to earn more than they already have.

Not sure how yet but possibly a site platform that would cross pollinate the Hearst auto magazines.

With print magazines going south more attention is being paid to social media formats now.

Points likely won’t be back as they were connected to swag gifts that stopped years ago when Jen departed.

Hope the virtual clubhouse we’ve had will continue but no clarity yet in what the future will be.

There has been much hand wringing about the Phillips departure that symbolizes a changing of the old guard that has been going on for a while.

With magazines shrinking and dying some older (and best paid) writers have been replaced with hungry, less experienced, lower paid writers. It is the natural evolution of the print world’s shrinking economy.

None of us like it but the issue isn’t making the magazine the way it used to be. It’s having the magazine/website survive and thrive in a changing world going toward electric and autonomous cars.

Society’s relationship to cars is evolving as are the ways they get reported.

And yet the "Earn Points, Get Swag" link remains on my home page, and I'd wager on yours as well. Whoever is webmaster of this mess now really isn't dotting his Is and crossing his Ts very well, to put it at its mildest.

And yet the "Earn Points, Get Swag" link remains on my home page, and I'd wager on yours as well. Whoever is webmaster of this mess now really isn't dotting his Is and crossing his Ts very well, to put it at its mildest.

If they’re changing the whole platform and format then tinkering with points and lightning bolts isn’t a priority.

Spent the past two days getting chauffeured around by a colleague while my company car was laid up. I don't know that I've ever been so afraid for my life. Very nice woman. But, driving skills? Not so much. She even joked about how others have made fun of her in the past and won't ride with her any longer. I could have won an Oscar for my portrayal of a calm passenger. Besides picking up her phone to check messages (and sometimes reply) every time she reached for something, be it a water bottle to her left or a pack of gum to her right, the car would drift in whatever direction she was reaching. Then, instead of a gentle drift back to center, it was a spastic jerk of the wheel to correct the trajectory. Smooth she was most certainly not. She liked to speed and tailgate too. All in all, it was a sphincter clenching couple of days for me. I am most happy to be alive and even more happy to have my own vehicle back so the shenanigans can cease. I need a drink...

Thursday - Well, the snow arrived as advertised. We got perhaps four or five inches, with some interesting drifts, but no big deal, and I cleared it before my gal took off for work. What I'm going to do with today, though, I haven't determined yet.

We seem to have dodged the bullet as well. So far anyway. We'll see what tomorrow brings. It is exceptionally windy though; which I'm sure has contributed to us not getting the snow that was originally predicted.

I’d wait a few more days, the market correction is going to continue. Also I’d wait until after Q1 earnings are out since right now Ford is projected to post a loss. I sold all my Ford stock a few months ago and I was glad I did, not ready to buy back in yet. I don’t think the bottom is here.

I figure with the release of the Bronco, Bronco Sport, F150, with electric variant, and Mach-E, stock prices are bound to go up.

I think that, too, but a fair amount of my paycheck depends on it. Thing is, none of those vehicles are even entering our test fleet until April they say, so... we wait. As do you. And everyone else.

Of course, I can go test for GM and whatever the hell Chrysler is calling itself if I want to make the commutes, but I don't. Yet. Ford keeps teasing us with the full camo "gonna get somedays", and if that means I'm stuck "testing" boring trucks and vans, that's what I'll do.

But if the past is any indicator, we're going to get all of the projects you listed simultaneously, and that's NEVER good. Oh, and they'll be months late like the Ranger and GT500 to name just two.

We're clear and sunny at 31F. Will drop 10 degrees tonight and stay below freezing for the next 3 days with no precipitation in the forecast.

East sides of the Great Lakes are getting hammered with between 1-2 feet of lake effect snow on top of the foot they already had.

North of us, absolutely! Just mere miles to the south where I live in Syracuse, we have been devoid of the snow for the most part. It actually rained today. And, the temps are climbing. 46ºF as I write this and expected to be in the low 50s tomorrow. It will cool back off as the week progresses. But, will get back into the 50s next week. Ah! Winter/Spring in Central NY!!

Friday - Not much more snow overnight, which is fine with me. Unfortunately, the snow blower seems to have a problem which I have to have someone look into. Other than that, we're doin' okay here on the North Coast.